1 Answer
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Yes, you actually can do this. It's kind of kludgy looking when you inspect the clipboard, but it works just fine.

First off, you can inspect the current clipboard contents with service call clipboard 1 from an adb shell (or, without shelling in first, adb shell service call clipboard 1). It may start out initially blank after a reboot, for example:

To be honest, I'm not sure what the first two parameters are. One answer on Stack Overflow has suggested the first int is "number of items in the parcel" (one in this case) and that the second is the length of the string. However, I've used 0 for the second parameter and it works fine, and I can't find any documentation that matches up with this particular function...so take that for what it's worth.

In any case, it's basically creating a Parcel object with 3 fields, then passing it into the clipboard. The clipboard then unpacks the Parcel and sets the string value passed in as the clipboard's contents. You can see this when you go to retrieve the value afterwards:

Similarly, if you long-press on a text entry field and hit "Paste" after doing this, you will get the text that was set via the call service clipboard 2 line above (and it will look completely normal).

@earthmeLon if you were just trying to find an easy way to copy your WPA key, then next time you might find it easier to do seomthing like email it to yourself and copy/paste from email, or copy a text file containing it onto your device over USB, then open and copy from there. There are other options like Wifi Keyboard that let you type (or paste) from a PC and have it appear on the phone.
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GAThrawnFeb 21 '12 at 10:47

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My WPA key is sensitive. It should not be broadcast over any non-local network EVER. Thanks for the suggestions @GAThrawn. I will find more use for this functionality eventually :D
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earthmeLonFeb 21 '12 at 18:10

copying a file via usb is local
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user24411Feb 14 '13 at 7:10

I get '........U.n.k.n.' 'o.w.n. .p.a.c.k.' 'a.g.e. ..... ') when making call service clipboard 2
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cprcrackMay 17 '14 at 11:23